by Melanie Marten

Created on: October 06, 2008

One of the inescapable truths of business, either on the Internet or in real life, is the need to contact prospects. To take advantage of modern technology while saving money, the e-mail systems have become an important way of contact between business owners the potential customers and clients they serve. There are, however, certain things one must take into consideration when using e-mail for business purposes.

There has been a high profile case in the news recently about the so called spam king. This man, who sent unsolicited emails to thousands and thousands of people, has now ended up in jail. Even if you are never investigated by the law, spamming potential customers or clients is not a good idea. Not only is it the top Internet complaint voiced by all users, it does little to establish a professional impression.

Is it possible therefore to contact your prospects by e-mail without getting in trouble or annoying them? The simple answer is yes, but you must be very careful about permission and subscription information.

The safest way to contact prospects by e-mail, is to collect their contact information before you can contact them at all. One of the most popular ways of doing this is putting a sign up form all your website. There are a newsletter, auto responder, and e-mail marketing programs that will set this up or you.

After you collect the e-mail addresses of interested prospects, you can send them emails about your products and services without worrying. It is a good idea to use a double opt in service. This ensures that no e-mail address enters your address book by accident. Another important thing to include is unsubscribed information. A link to be unsubscribed from the newsletter or emailing service should be provided in every e-mail.

Once you have permission and contact information from a interested prospects, you need to contact them in a particular way. Obviously, you should keep your business emails professional, concise, and courteous. Do not give information that the people did not sign up to get. Limit advertising to those products that you truly believe give a good value to the customers or clients.

Contacting prospects by e-mail can seem like a challenging proposition. However, as long as you follow all national and international spam laws, and provide quality content and information till your customers or clients, you should not have any problems.

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